The priority of the right over the good: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of Politics and Law » The priority of the right over the good » The priority of the right over the good

The priority of the right over the good

Page: 1 2

The priority of the right over the good

nosos
skeptical

Usergroup: Administrators
Joined: Jul 24, 2004
Location: Coventry, UK
Total Topics: 145
Total Posts: 2290

Posted 03/17/07 - 11:12 AM: Subject: The priority of the right over the good	#1
Can we coherently separate the right from the good? Rawls claims that the right has priority over the good: people’s right to form differing conceptions of the good must be affirmed over any one conception of the good. Liberal states must have a neutrality when it comes to differing conceptions of the good. People must be free to exercise their moral powers and come to their own conception. Is this really neutrality? Or is it just a liberal affirmation of a liberal conception of the good: namely that a good life is one that has been freely or autonomously chosen by the person living it?
"The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss? - Max Stirner "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - JS Mill "I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy Goth kid." - Butters

Fried Egg
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 14, 2003
Location: Exeter, England
Total Topics: 95
Total Posts: 2799

Posted 03/19/07 - 06:33 AM:	#2
It is a kind of meta-good. i.e. It is good that people should, as far as is possible, be able to decide for themselves what is good. How can the good have priority over the right? This simply means inequal rights. Some have the right to determine what is good and others don't. They have the right to determine this, not only for themselves, but for others. This might well come down to your conception of good. Is it a subjective or objective notion? If it is subjective, then surely the right should have priority over the good. And viseversa when it is objective.

ade90212
Assistant Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 07, 2005
Location: Ex-Exeter
Total Topics: 28
Total Posts: 352

Posted 03/19/07 - 02:24 PM:	#3
I agree that Rawls has smuggled a liberal conception of the good into the Original Position. It seems perverse to require that people are required to make choices about the kinds of lives that they are likely to live without any knowledge of their conception of the good, or indeed the worthwhile. Surely the way that we structure our lives can only sensibly be decided in the light of that which we value. Although I thing Rawls' theory is a real masterpiece of style, I have always had a nagging doubt that it is only those that share our conception of the good (I'm assuming that we are all fairly liberal) that would accept the conditions of the Original Position. Such an issue is related to the question as to whether we should tolerate intolerance. If people are intolerant, who are we to say that they should not be so? Similarly, to set up the conditions of the Original Position in such a way that only those that already agree with us will agree to them seems an argument unlikely to persuade.
"Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up "What's that?" - It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said: "this is a man", "this is a house", etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks: what's this then?" - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

Makarismos
Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Location: Uk, Midlands
Total Topics: 15
Total Posts: 713

Posted 03/28/07 - 01:13 PM:	#4
Perhaps this is indeed so, and Rawls conception of the Origonal position is biased toward our current position; would it be possible to describe a different Origonal Position which would be un-biased? or are we doomed to recreate our own situation in our conceptions of sociotys ideals?

unrealist42
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 06, 2003
Location: City of Dreams
Total Topics: 6
Total Posts: 2031

Posted 03/29/07 - 02:03 PM:	#5
The real good is right. So no, they are not separable. Nevertheless, people insist over and over that their good is right. The only way to do this is separate good from right so they separate the inseparable. We see this all the time. Eventually, this separation of right and good degenerates into intolerance which is not right. It is its antithesis. The argument that we must tolerate intolerance to prove right is a false argument for intolerance denies right and in so doing negates right entirely. So, to support the right of intolerance is to take the position that right does not exist, only good, which is subjective.

shivaaah
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 09, 2004
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 13

Posted 04/03/07 - 08:36 PM:	#6
"Or is it just a liberal affirmation of a liberal conception of the good: namely that a good life is one that has been freely or autonomously chosen by the person living" From what I remember of Rawls, he argues instead that reasonable comprehensive doctrines, when confronted with pluralism, share an "overlapping consensus" that allow them all to accomodate his version of political justice. The argument is not circular in that the "reasonableness" of the comprehensive doctrines that share this overlapping consensus is not fundamentally based on their acceptance of Rawls. Rather, "reasonableness" is based on how cooperatively they confront the fact of pluralist life. Personally, I don't think Rawls needed to show this accomodation of comprehensive doctrines. Surely, I don't think he should have focused so much effort on explaining it. He should have taken the view you mentioned- there are plenty of good arguments for the rightness of liberal thought, including its provision for toleration. These arguments hinge upon equal respect and cooperation, not upon a neutral taking of all comprehensive doctrines, which eases the tension between valuing toleration and claiming truth in your liberalism.

nosos
skeptical

Usergroup: Administrators
Joined: Jul 24, 2004
Location: Coventry, UK
Total Topics: 145
Total Posts: 2290

Posted 04/19/07 - 05:37 AM:	#7
Fried Egg wrote: This might well come down to your conception of good. Is it a subjective or objective notion? If it is subjective, then surely the right should have priority over the good. And viseversa when it is objective. Does this work as a defence of the liberal principle though? The separation of the right and the good is a normative concept so even if the liberal says that “conceptions of the good therefore the state ought not to legislate in favour of any conception of the good (i.e. the right is prior to the good)” does this not implicate some concrete notion about it being a good thing for the state not to legislate in favour of any one subjective view? Differing sorts of ethical concepts are invoked but ethical concepts are invoked, leaving the assertion of the priority of the right over the good as (in effect) an underhanded way of achieving liberal hegemony over ethical discourse. It’s an indirect way of asserting that a certain set of liberal values have a special status over-and-above all non-liberal values. I like your phrase that it’s a meta-good. This seems to be the issue at the very heart of liberalism’s ethical-philosophical framework, alongside the conception it implicates of the person as a pre-social autonomous chooser of ends i.e. a person chooses conceptions of the good, those conceptions (our ethical commitments) are not constitutive of who we are. I’ve just started reading a very interesting book by Michael Sandel called Democracy’s Discontent where he’s arguing for civic republicanism over Rawlsian/Kantian liberalism. Has anyone read much communitarian political philosophy? I’m trying to order my thoughts on it at the moment but there conflict between the two seems (fundamentally) to consist in the status accorded to conceptions of the good and the rest of the political philosophy is worked up from the respective conflicting positions.
"The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss? - Max Stirner "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - JS Mill "I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy Goth kid." - Butters

Fried Egg
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 14, 2003
Location: Exeter, England
Total Topics: 95
Total Posts: 2799

Posted 04/19/07 - 07:54 AM:	#8
nosos If there is no objective way for determining what is good, what justification can there possibly be for imposing your definition onto everyone else who doesn't agree? It is not up to the liberal to justify why one persons's idea of good shouldn't be imposed. It is up to he who seeks to impose to do the justifying. I have heard it said in the past that if person A stops person B imposing upon person A, then by doing so, person A is imposing upon person B. But I can't help thinking that even if you class both actions as an imposition, they are qualatively different from one another. i.e. the level of imposition of B on A is of a higher order than the imposition of A on B. So, yes, saying that each person should be able to, as far as possible, be free to decide for themselves what is good, we are attempting to impose an ethical framework but one which is categorically less imposing than any other.

Pete
Assistant Professor

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 04, 2003
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 479

Posted 04/21/07 - 03:44 PM:	#9
nosos wrote: Can we coherently separate the right from the good? Rawls claims that the right has priority over the good: people’s right to form differing conceptions of the good must be affirmed over any one conception of the good. Liberal states must have a neutrality when it comes to differing conceptions of the good. People must be free to exercise their moral powers and come to their own conception. Is this really neutrality? Or is it just a liberal affirmation of a liberal conception of the good: namely that a good life is one that has been freely or autonomously chosen by the person living it? I think Rawls means something different by the priority of the right over the good. His conception of justice, unlike utilitarianism, affirms a set of basic liberties. The state may not infringe these liberties even when doing so would maximize the good. This, as I understand it, is the sense in which Rawls affirms the priority of the right over the good. Neutrality about the good is of course also important to Rawls, and that is among the reasons why he adopts an objective measure of well-being (primary goods). But a utilitarian could adopt this metric, and this would not mean that they have given the right priority over the good.

Megalopsuchos
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 09, 2007
Location: Portland
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 122

Posted 04/21/07 - 11:09 PM:	#10
How about using Habermas for the difference between 'right' and 'good'? (I heard a talk on it, but am afraid I ill equipped to explain it.)

Page: 1 2

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.